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History and Anthropology

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Calendars Tell History: Social Rhythm

and Social Change in Rural Pakistan
Muhammad Aurang Zeb Mughal
Published online: 18 Jun 2014.

To cite this article: Muhammad Aurang Zeb Mughal (2014) Calendars Tell History: Social
Rhythm and Social Change in Rural Pakistan, History and Anthropology, 25:5, 592-613, DOI:
10.1080/02757206.2014.930034
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2014.930034

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History and Anthropology, 2014

Vol. 25, No. 5, 592613, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02757206.2014.930034

Calendars Tell History: Social Rhythm

and Social Change in Rural Pakistan
Downloaded by [INASP - Pakistan (PERI)] at 23:04 17 November 2014

Muhammad Aurang Zeb Mughal

Time is an important element of social organization. The temporal models such as the
calendar provide social rhythm by regulating various activities. The changing ways of
managing time are indicative of social change. This paper presents the changing use of
different calendars in Jhokwala Village, Lodhran District, Pakistan. Three calendars are
used in most parts of the Punjab to varying degrees for various purposes. These are
Bikrami, Islamic Hijri and Gregorian calendars. Each of these calendars has a specic
history of use. This paper highlights that people choose between various alternatives in
the course of history and the changing use of calendars tells the story of change and continuity in culture and peoples attitude towards modern technology and social change.
Keywords: Social Change; Anthropology of Time; Calendars; Pakistan; Rural Social
Organization
1. Introduction
Time is one of the important and basic elements of social organization. Since time,
along with space, connects different parts of the social organization, any change in
the cultural models of time affects the overall social organization (Barth 1967;
Mughal 2008, 2014). For this reason, change and continuity in the cultural models
of time indicate peoples response towards social change. Time is embedded in
human cognition, social relationships, economics and religion (see Adam 1994;
Bender, Bennardo, and Beller 2005; Eickelman 1977; El Guindi 2008; Gingrich 1994;
Mughal 2009). Different cultures have different ways of measuring and managing
time according to their specic sociocultural and socioeconomic contexts. Calendars

Correspondence to: Muhammad Aurang Zeb Mughal, Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Dawson
Building, South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK. Email: mughalmaz@gmail.com
2014 Taylor & Francis

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593

and clocks are among the most fundamental models of time, through which people
organize various activities. By regulating time for different activities, calendars and
clocks represent peoples attitude towards time, nature and changing socioeconomic
and sociopolitical circumstances (Goody 1968). There is a great deal of anthropological
literature to suggest that the local context of global temporality helps to understand
social change by studying the adoption of new calendars or change in the contextual
use of existing calendars (see Burman 1981; Gingrich, Ochs, and Swedlund 2002;
Holtzman 2004). The calendar is not merely a system of measuring time and dividing
it into years, months, weeks and days. Instead, the calendar gives a rhythmic form to
time, which unfolds itself into social rhythms (Munn 1992, 9596). Therefore, studying
calendars in the cultural context provide us with an understanding of the social organization of time. Since the everyday rhythm of social activities is regulated by the calendar, any change in the use of the calendar will trigger changes in many other social and
economic spheres of human activities.
A majority of Pakistans population lives in rural areas and relies on agriculture for
its subsistence (Weiss and Mughal 2012). There has been a gradual shift from an agricultural to the market economy in many villages of Pakistan, mostly in the last two to
three decades. Consequently, small villages are turning into towns and experiencing
social change at a higher pace than they ever did in the past (Ali 2003; Niazi 2012).
Many farmers have abandoned agriculture and have started to work in factories,
cities or overseas. This has further boosted the process of urbanization and technological change in rural areas. Most economic and sociological analyses of social change in
Pakistan only take into account the economic and political factors (see Haider 1981;
Ihsan 1992; Sathar and Kiani 1998), which are not sufcient to explain the sociocultural
and socioeconomic dynamics in small rural communities and how these are being
inuenced by the effects of globalization and urbanization. This paper explains the
dynamics of social change in the Pakistani society by offering evidence from a rural
perspective.
I discuss the changing use of different calendars in rural areas of Pakistani Punjab to
explain various dimensions of social change in the Pakistani society. The lunisolar
Bikrami calendar, locally known as the desi maheenay (indigenous months), has
been in use in Jhokwala for several centuries for managing agricultural activities.
After the advent of Islam in South Asia during the eighth century (Avari 2013, 17
36; Malik 2008, 4963), the lunar Islamic Hijri calendar came into use by Muslims
for regulating Islamic religious activities. The use of the desi maheenay, however, continued for agricultural purposes because the solar component of this calendar was
helpful in reckoning the seasonal cycles. Therefore, the desi maheenay is also a
source of indigenous knowledge about seasons and ecology. During the eighteenth
century, the British introduced the Gregorian calendar in the region, but its use
remained limited to cities even until the 1960s. The government of Pakistan ofcially
adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1947. All the government ofces now follow this
calendar. The use of the Gregorian calendar in villages increased gradually after an
intensive contact with cities and a gradual shift from a seasonal agricultural to
market economy.

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In addition to studying social change, by showing the complexity and the variety
of ways different calendars organize the social rhythm of festivals and mundane
activities in Pakistan, I also highlight in this paper that the conceptual models of
nature are subject to social and economic transitions (see Lyon 2012; Mughal 2012).
Further, studying the use of the calendar can help in making cross-cultural comparisons in anthropological analyses. For example, Muslims all over the world follow the
same Islamic calendar for their religious festivals such as fasting and Eid, in addition
to some rituals that might be localized to a region or community, for example
shrine festivals. Therefore, studying rituals and ceremonies managed through the
Islamic calendar can be helpful in making comparisons and understanding local contexts of widely practiced rituals by Muslims (see Bowen 1992; El Guindi 2008; Henig
2011).
I present here the case study of a small village, Jhokwala, Lodhran District, in the
Southern part of the Punjab province, also called South Punjab. The older generation
in the village has been using desi maheenay. The use of this calendar decreased over time
for several reasons. One of the major reasons is the use of the Gregorian calendar in the
rural areas because of an increase in contact with cities and decline in agriculture. No
indigenous knowledge about agriculture and seasons associated with this calendar is
being transferred to the next generations. It is a common phenomenon in many developing countries where people adopt modern technologies leaving the indigenous
farming practices (Ellen, Parkes, and Bicker 2000). Since all human activities occur
in time, the management and use of time are in ux. This change in the ways of
measuring time indicates social and technological change caused by a number of
factors. Firstly, the population grew over time and consequently there was an
inadequate supply of land for agriculture. Many people changed their occupation
from agriculture to wage labour, shopkeeping and government jobs, or migrated overseas in the hope that they could have a better living, which led to an urban lifestyle in
the village. People started to bring televisions, washing machines and other modern
technology from the cities and from overseas. Farmers also started to use modern technology in agriculture. All these changes affected the nature of social relationships in the
village. For example, the exchange of services in agricultural production that was
common in most agrarian communities in South Asia, known as jajmani (Orans
1968) and seypi (Eglar 1960, 32, 200; Ahmad 1977; Lyon 2004, 99100) by Hindus
and Muslims, respectively, has disappeared. This system was called oluk in this
region. It consisted of mutual obligations for work and payment between a landlord
and the so-called kammis or service occupations such as nais (barbers) and mochis
(shoemakers), similar to the seypi system. Oluk is no longer practiced in Jhokwala
after the widespread trend of temporary migration to cities and overseas, and
opening up of alternative ways of earning such as shops and labour. The abandonment
of the oluk system itself is an indicator of a market-based cash economy. Secondly,
there has been a tremendous shift in the technology used for agriculture. There is
now less reliance on animals in cultivation, harvesting and transportation of products.
This technological and occupational change also affected the social organization of
time. People needed money to buy machines and modern facilities, and to spend on

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their ceremonies and rituals. Many farmers sold their agricultural land and opened
shops at the nearby highway junction, called the Adda Parmat market. People
started to measure time in smaller units such as hours and minutes, in contrast to
the larger units of measuring time using indigenous knowledge of cultural astronomy
in the same way as they started to measure land in smaller units such as square feet
instead of using larger units. The extended household shared by the entire family
became fragmented into smaller nuclear units. However, people continue to use the
Islamic calendar for religious activities since many generations as this calendar is an
essential element of the religious organization.
There are mainly two languages spoken in the village: Saraiki and a Haryanvi dialect
of Urdu. Saraiki is native to this part of Punjab and is closely related to Punjabi, as well
as some other Pakistani languages. After 1947, because of the Partition, Hindus from
this area migrated to India, whereas Muslims from the Indian side, mainly from
Haryana, migrated to Pakistan and settled here. They speak the Haryanvi dialect of
Urdu. Urdu being the national language is also spoken and understood by the entire
population. Majority of the local terminologies related to calendars and seasons is
not radically different between these languages. I have used the terms that are
common in Urdu and Saraiki, except in the section related to the indigenous
months and seasons where almost all terms are Saraiki, unless I notify otherwise.
This is because the detailed information related to these topics, such as folklore,
comes from Saraiki respondents. There is a minor difference in the pronunciation of
a few terms related to indigenous months and seasons in both the languages.
The ethnographic data used in this paper were collected in 2010. After developing
rapport in the community, it became easier for me to engage myself with its
members in their activities. People let me in in their social lives, be it a cricket
match or harvesting the crop, which they deemed necessary to be documented as
part of their culture. Participant observation, the most signicant feature of anthropological research, of routine activities, helped me in understanding how people form and
maintain social relations (Holy 1984, 1334). I participated in mundane activities and
special events whenever it was possible and whenever the community allowed me. This
provided me with an insight into how people create, experience and utilize time. A
person-to-person interaction in the form of an interview with a specic purpose
in mind is the most commonly used technique for data collection in social research
(Kumar 1999, 109). I conducted semi-structured individual interviews after drawing
a suitable sample from the socioeconomic survey and through snowball sampling.
Focus Group Discussions provided valuable and reliable information, which I also
used to crosscheck the information collected through other methods. Since this
study did not involve any sensitive topics such as conicts, sexuality and drugs, I
could collect detailed and authentic information through open-ended group discussions and interviews. I discussed in these interviews the topics such as routine activities
of people, their time allocation for various activities, issues regarding social development and modication in the time measurement methods over time. I conducted
group interviews with people from different age groups and occupations to see how
people from different social and economic groups have different understandings and

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attitudes towards time. I used a digital recorder during the interviews as these conversations included indigenous terms, names, phrases and stories. This ow of conversation was helpful in analysing the meanings and etymology of these terms in the cultural
context. Further, some minor details may have otherwise been missed, which are either
difcult to remember with accuracy or note down on the spot if I were not using the
digital recorder.
Collecting the case studies of certain events and life histories was helpful in many
ways. Participating in various ceremonies, cultivation, harvesting and social gettogethers was useful in terms of studying peoples time trends, by analysing the frequency of the occurrence of such events as well as the timings and places of these
events. Data on these case studies come from participant observation, interviews and
informal discussion. Myths, oral traditions and folklore are important sources of information, and many anthropologists have used these methods to study time (Errington
1974; Harwood 1976; Ohnuki-Tierney 1969). Studying the experiences of one generation passed on to the next generation through oral stories gives an insight into the
social and moral world of the past. These social realities of the past were compared
with contemporary conditions to see what changes had taken place in these trends
with the passage of time (Bertaux and Thompson 2005; McComb 2008). These oral
traditions contain information about time measurement, memories of certain events
and stories about different places. I collected these oral traditions in the form of
phrases and myths, and analysed them in order to ascertain the concepts of time
embedded in these oral traditions within the cultural context.
2. The Bikrami Calendar or Desi Maheenay
One afternoon, in mid-July, it started raining when I was discussing about various
crops and seasons with one of my hosts during the eldwork, Zafar Chaudhary,
along with some people from Jhokwala and the nearby villages. Among those
people, Ahmed said that the month of Saawanrr had come. I asked how he knew
that Saawanrr had come. He replied that the rainy season comes at the end of
summer, and they called it Saawanrr. Zafar added that these were the desi maheenay,
which the vadday (elders and ancestors) used to calculate when they lived with
Hindus. They told me that through these months farmers could make hisaab (calculation) of seasons and timing of different crops. Nowadays, people no longer formally
practice this calendar.
These desi maheenay are, in fact, the Bikrami calendar. This served as an agrarian
calendar in Punjab. Archaeological and historical evidences suggest that several local
calendars were used in South Asia as early as 2000 BCE (see Ashfaque 1977; McIntosh
2008, 345348). These calendars were devised by using astronomical knowledge and
were used to regulate religious activities, mainly in Hinduism (Kennedy, Engle, and
Wamstad 1965). Ancient scriptures such as Rig Veda mention these calendars to
mark the religious festivals and seasonal cycles. Interestingly, no uniform calendric
system has been practiced by rural communities in South Asia since ancient times.
Instead, people used different calendars in different regions and cities. Today,

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general terms such as desi, Hindu, Vedic, Punjabi, or Sindhi calendars are used for
various forms and eras of these calendars.1 Almost all of these calendars are lunisolar,
having both lunar and solar components, which are synchronized through various
methods (Freed and Freed 1964). The differences in these calendars are of religious,
astronomical, linguistic and historical concern. For instance, crescent is the rst date
of the lunar month in some regions, such as Pakistani Punjab and the Northern
India, whereas in other regions, such as Southern India, the full moon marks the
new lunar month. The names of months are slightly different across different languages
and regions but are, in many cases, mutually intelligible.
The most widely known eras are the Bikrami and the Saka. People living in different
regions of South Asia practicing the same eras may have followed different astronomical traditions. According to Al-Beruni, the Bikrami era marks the victory of
Vikramaditya of Ujjain over the Saka rulers in a battle that took place between
Multan and the castle of Loni in 57 BCE (Sachau [1910] 2007, 6).2 Loni is now
a small village in Kahror Pacca tehsil (sub-division) of Lodhran District. Vikramaditya is also pronounced as Bikramajeet in Punjab. Later on, many rulers used
this name as a title. The Sakas regained power but Shalivahana Gautamiputra Satakarni, the grandson of Vikramaditya, defeated them and initiated the ShalivahanaSaka era in 78 CE (Sagar 1992, 136). Its name was simplied later in general use
as the Saka era. The Indian government formalized the ofcial Indian national
calendar in 1957 based on the Saka era (Penprase 2010, 157). The Bikrami era is
traditionally practiced in the Northern and Western parts of India, and Pakistani
Punjab, including Lodhran.3 The Bikrami calendar, with slight variations, is recognized as the ofcial calendar of Nepal. Similarly, Sikh organizations adopted the
solar Nanakshahi calendar globally in 2003, which is, in fact, an amended version
of the Bikrami calendar (Nesbitt 2004, 5065). Eickelman (1977, 44) found that
Moroccan tribesmen do not recognize the formal name of their calendar. The same
is valid for the people in Jhokwala as they, too, do not recognize the formal name of
the Bikrami calendar. Murphy (2001, 195) also mentions that the people in Lahore
use the term desi maheenay for this calendar. Eglar (1960, 5051, 204) used the
terms farmers calendar and Punjabi months for this calendar in her study of a
Punjabi village. However, some people in Jhokwala do recognize its formal name
mainly because some local newspapers also print the date according to the Bikrami
calendar. People are unaware of the history of this calendar and its association
with the history of Lodhran. Not only Saraikis widely used the desi maheenay, but
Rajputs also practiced the same calendar when they lived in Haryana. In fact, both
Haryana and Punjab follow the same astronomical traditions in their practice of this
calendar.
It is a lunisolar calendar having two components: lunar and solar. The synodic
period or the time required for the moon to complete one series of its successive
phases is known as the lunar month. Twelve such synodic periods of the moon form
a lunar year. A lunar month is roughly equal to 29.5 solar days. There are twelve
months in the Bikrami calendar and each month starts approximately in the middle
of a Gregorian month. Chaitr is the rst desi month and starts in the middle of

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March. Each month has xed days, either thirty or thirty-one, except some yearly
alterations of either a day or two in one or two months. Usually the months from
Wisaakh to Asoon are of thirty-one days. The intercalation between the solar and
lunar cycles is done by adding a thirteenth intercalary month after two or three
years. People do not know the exact method of intercalation between the lunar and
solar cycles except for a few elderly people who can roughly describe this method.
They explained to me that the new month begins when the cycles of the moon and
the sun meet. The time or day when the sun enters into a new zodiacal sign within a
lunar month, marking the beginning of a new desi month, is called saghraand. The corresponding year of the Bikrami calendar in 2010 was 2067, as the Bikrami calendar is
56.7 years ahead of the Common Era. However, the chronological record of this calendar has no importance for the community; instead, people use the cyclicity of months
to reckon the agricultural cycles. In Hinduism, some religious festivals are celebrated
according to the lunar cycle, whereas others are celebrated according to the solar
one. Therefore, for Hindus, it is important to calculate both the components and synchronize them for practical reasons. Muslims celebrate their festivals according to the
lunar Islamic Hijri calendar instead, but they have been using the Bikrami calendar for
reckoning the seasonal cycles.
The use of the Bikrami calendar is declining and is limited to some elderly people
now. Khuda Bukhsh learnt the calculation of these months from his elderly relatives
and parents. According to him, Muslims used desi maheenay for calculating seasons
and agricultural activities:
Now, the current month is Saawanrr. After this, Badroon will come, then Asoon, then
Katiyen, then Manghir, then Poh, then Mah, then Phagunrr, Chaitr, Wisaakh, Jeth,
Ahrr. These four are big. Then I tell, Ahrr has passed, Ahrr, Saawanrr, and Badroon.
These are the months of summer. Asoon, Katiyen, Manghir, these are of autumn. Poh,
Mah, Phagunrr, these are of winter. Chaitr, Wisaakh, Jeth, these are of spring. Those
people [ancestors] had a good memory. Hindus, they also used to tell this [calculation
of months]. They had written calculations [of these months] with them. (Khuda
Bukhsh, 75)

This does not imply that people do not calculate the desi months at all. Whenever I
asked them what desi month it was, they were usually able to tell the name of the
current month. They were, however, not sure about the exact date. They used the
expressions such as n month may be ending or n month may be starting.
This became convoluted when I asked this question in the very early or last days
of a month because people then confused between two consecutive months. Once
I was passing by the elds along with my friend Tahir in the village and met
some women engaged in cutting grass for their livestock. I asked a woman, in
her fties, if she could tell me which desi month it was. She replied that it was
Jeth. She could easily describe the names of all the desi months, too. She also
believed that elderly people in the village could calculate the desi months and that
since she was illiterate she could not calculate. It was surprising for me that majority
of the elderly people, who were supposed to be able to calculate the desi months,
were unable to do so. Unlike the Gregorian and Islamic calendars, which are

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599

available in printed form or even in mobile phones, the only sources of knowing the
exact dates of the desi months are local newspapers and radio. Children can only
name a few desi months but cannot recognize the current month unless they
know it from their parents.
People associate the change of seasons with these months. The seasonal variations,
the movement of the migratory birds and other natural phenomena help to reckon
the desi months. For instance, Poh is marked with extreme cold in winter, whereas
Ahrr is marked with extreme heat in summer. These months played an important
role in the celebration of ceremonies. For example, people used to prefer Chaitr and
Wisaakh for performing marriages because of moderate weather conditions and the
availability of money after harvesting wheat, and also because farmers were not busy
in the agricultural activities. In Jhokwala, a season is not recognized merely by a cyclical
duration of similar environmental conditions but an agricultural cycle can also dene a
season. There are two terms used in Jhokwala, both equally used in Saraiki and Urdu:
rut and mausam. The term rut originates from the Sanskrit term ritu or rutu, and the
Latin term ritu, used for periodical observances, also has common roots. There are six
seasons recognized in ancient Sanskrit literature and each season marks specic religious rituals (Selby 2003). Presently, the term mausam is more widely used instead
of rut. It is originally an Arabic word and is used to describe a season as well as the
Table 1. Desi Maheenay and their corresponding activities and temporal markers.
Desi
Maheenay

Gregorian
months

Temporal markers

Major activities/association

Chaitr/Chait

MarchApril

Cool weather

Wisaakh/
Bisaakh
Jeth
Ahrr/Haarr

AprilMay

Warm and dry weather

MayJune
JuneJuly

Hot and dry weather

Extremely hot weather

Saawanrr

JulyAugust

Badroon/
Bhaadva
Asoon

August
September
September
October
October
November
November
December
December
January
January
February
February
March

Monsoon rain and

Bataira (quail) visits
Monsoon rain

Weeding paddies

Koonj (crane) and tilharr/

tilor (starling) visit
Murghabi (teal) arrives

Cotton picking; sugarcane and rice

harvesting
Wheat cultivation and marriages

Cold weather

Wheat cultivation

Extreme cold

Weeding the wheat crop

Extreme cold and skin

scratches
Cold weather

Weeding the wheat crop

Katiyen/
Katak
Manghir
Poh
Mah
Phagunrr/
Phaganrr

Wheat harvesting; cutting of maize

and millet; marriages and festivals
Wheat harvesting; cutting of
vegetables; marriages and festivals
Cultivation of rice, sugar and cotton
Cultivation of rice, sugarcane and
cotton
Rice cultivation

Planting maize and millet for fodder

and planting vegetables

Note: The rst local term is in Saraiki while the alternate one is in Haryanvi dialect of Urdu.

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daily weather. The two seasons hunala (only used in Saraiki) or garmi (summer) and
siala (only used in Saraiki) or sardi (winter) are marked as a dichotomy between hot
and cold. These are recognized as the major seasons in everyday conversation; for
instance, sardiyan de garam te motay kaprray (warm and thick clothes for winter)
and garmiyan de thaday te patle kapray (cool and thin clothes for summer).
Summer starts from Chaitr to Badroon, whereas siala starts from Asoon to Mah.
People use the words bahaar (spring) and pat jharr or khizaan (autumn) as transitional
periods between summer and winter. Table 1 shows the desi maheenay along with their
corresponding temporal markers as well as agricultural and social activities throughout
the year.
Crops are divided into two categories based on their seasons: Kharif (autumn) and
Rabi (spring). The Kharif season starts from Wisaakh. The Kharif crops, such as rice
and sunower, are normally sown in Saawanrr during the monsoon and are harvested
in the months of Asoon and Katiyen. The Rabi crops, such as wheat and barley, are normally sown in the months of Asoon and Katiyen and are harvested in Chaitr and
Wisaakh. Sometimes, terms such as kanrrk da mausam (wheat season) and phutti da
mausam (cotton-picking season) are also used. These are, of course, not the formal divisions of a year but indicate that people associate seasons with crops. For this reason,
reckoning of the seasons and the desi maheenay were also important for the barbers,
shoemakers and others who were part of the oluk system.
Although the use of the desi months has been minimized, there are still some linguistic expressions in Saraiki, which relate the desi months with seasonal variations. I collected many such proverbs, mainly from elderly people. In these proverbs and phrases,
the desi months are usually mentioned in pairs because of similar weather conditions
during those months. For example:
Chaitr Wisaakh, ghumo phiro
[During] Chaitr [and] Wisaakh, walk [or travel]
Asoon Katiyen, thorra khao
[During] Asoon [and] Katiyen, eat less
Jeth Ahrr, sumo
[During] Jeth [and] Ahrr, sleep
Saawanrr Badroon, dhaano
[During] Saanwanrr [and] Badroon, take a bath
Manghir Poh, saiko
[During] Manghir [and] Poh, keep yourself warm [in front of a re]
Mah Phagunrr, daikho
[During] Manghir [and] Poh, see [re from the distance]

This pairing of months shows that there is a high degree of correlation between cyclicity
of seasons and the desi months. It also reects the ancient cultural reckoning of
six seasons. It shows that the indigenous division of seasons into two was based
on the two extreme classications of hot and cold weather, with further six subseasons as reected through the pairing of these months (Figure 1). In some proverbs
and everyday conversation, the distinctive features of each month are also recognized.
In these proverbs, the desi months indicate their corresponding weather conditions. For
instance:

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History and Anthropology

Figure 1.

601

Seasons and the Desi Maheenay.

Saawanrr aaya, siala jaya

Saawanrr comes, [it indicates that] the winter [is about to] born
Mah di thadi luhrri!
The cool breeze of Mah!
Phagunrr kandhi lagunrr
Phagunrr [makes one] stick to the wall [to take shelter]
Badroon bad bla wat wee Saawanrr hovay ha
Badroon [is a] curse, would that Saawanrr may have been [continued]

Both Badroon and Saawanrr are associated with rainfall. In the last proverb, Badroon,
which follows Saawanrr, is being cursed because of the unexpected timings of showers
and an increase in cold during this month. The pairing of months in proverbs exists not
only between the two subsequent months, but also between any two months having
similar weather conditions. For instance:

602

M. A. Z. Mughal
Asoon Mah wilala, deehyen dhuppeen raateen siala
Asoon [and] Mah [are] strange, [its] days are sunny [and its] nights [are like] winter
[during these months]

In the last proverb, the seventh desi month of Asoon and the eleventh month Mah are
mentioned together. This is due to similar weather conditions as these are the transitional months between summer and winter.

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3. The Islamic Hijri Calendar

On the evening of 25 July, I was sitting with Tahir in his ofce. Suddenly we heard the
sound of a blast followed some more in a sequence. When we came out on the road, a
few boys were setting off reworks. Tahir told they were celebrating Shab-e-Baraat (the
Night of Innocence) as the fteenth Shaban was going to be on 28 July.4 Shaban is the
eighth month according to the Islamic Hijri calendar. This calendar is important from a
religious perspective. Muslims all over the world use the Islamic Hijri calendar to regulate their religious activities. The origin of this calendar marks the year during which
the Islamic Prophet migrated from Mecca to Medina in 621 CE (see El Guindi 2008,
113121). The Arabic for migration is hijrat; thus, this calendar is known as the
Hijri calendar. Islamic festivals such as Eid, Milad-un-Nabi (Birth of the Prophet)
and fasting are celebrated using this calendar. Some Islamic months have more signicance than others in terms of the religious activities associated with them such as
Muharram, Rabi-ul-Awal, Rajab, Shaban, Ramazan, Shiwaal and Zilhajj (Table 2). It
is a lunar calendar comprising 354 days in common years, and 355 days in the
Table 2. The Islamic Hijri calendar.
Name of month

Important dates

Major activities

Taboos

Muharram

110th: Battle of
Karbala in 680 CE

Charity is given, especially

on the evening of 10th

Marriages or any
festivals of happiness
are not celebrated
and playing music is
not appreciated

Safar
Rabi-ul-Awwal
Rabi-us-Sani
Jamadi-ul-Awwal
Jamadi-us-Sani
Rajab
Shaban

Suffering
12th: Milad-un-Nabi

Taviz at doors
Celebration of Milad

27th: Meraj
15th: Shab-e-Barat

Ramazan

Lailat-ul-Qadar
occurs during the
last ten days
1st: Eid-ul-Fitr

Charity and prayers

Celebration and prayers of
Shab-e-Barat
Fasting; etkaaf in the last
ten days; preparations
for Eid
Eid prayers; meeting with
relatives and friends

Shiwaal
Zeeqad
Zilhajj

812th: Hajj
10th: Eid-ul-Azha

Animal sacrice

Eating publicly during

the day is not
appreciated

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History and Anthropology

603

embolismic years divided into twelve lunar months. The lunar months drift eleven or
twelve days earlier in every seasonal year and the seasonal relation repeats itself every 33
Islamic years (Richards 1998, 231235). Crescent has become a central notion of
Islamic symbolism because of this lunar calendar. This calendar was introduced in
South Asia when Islam rst came into the regions of Sindh and South Punjab in the
eighth century. The use of this calendar spread across South Asia as Muslim rulers
adopted it as the ofcial calendar.
According to Islamic teachings, people have to sight the moon in order to conrm
the start of a new Islamic month. Before the introduction of the media and modern
transportation, Muslims had to rely on local witnesses of crescent sighting to celebrate
any religious event. Therefore, it was quite possible that one town celebrated the event
on one day while the other on the following day. After independence, the government
of Pakistan formed the central crescent sighting committee, which gathers scientic
information and eyewitnesses regarding crescent sighting. If the committee conrms
any incidence of crescent sighting, the whole country celebrates the religious event corresponding to that month on the same date. All the people I spoke with could easily tell
the exact order of the Islamic months. People normally do not calculate the exact date
of the Islamic month unless there is any religious festival or ritual occurring in that
month. Some people start counting the weeks or days remaining for the months like
Ramazan, which is the fasting month. People start asking each other how many days
are left for Ramazan. In 2010, the Hijri year was 1431 AH.5 The chronology of this
calendar is less important for people, albeit they do recognize that it is the fourteenth
century according to this calendar. The reference to fourteen centuries according to the
Islamic calendar is usually given when comparing the modern times with the early
period of Islam.
Muharram is the rst Islamic month. Its major signicance is regarding the
incidence of Karbala. Imam Hussain, the grandson of the Islamic Prophet, was martyred in Karbala, Iraq, along with his family and friends in 680 (61 AH). The Shia
mourning procession during Muharram is the commemoration of this incidence.
There are no mourning processions or public performances of any ritual in Jhokwala
during Muharram as the entire population is Sunni. In the mosque, the Friday
Sermon or any lesson during the rst ten days of Muharram mentions this incidence
with great respect. On the tenth day of Muharram, called Ashura, people visit the
cemetery. They pray for their deceased relatives and leave owers and green leaves
at the graves. Women visit the cemetery on the eleventh. Some people give
khairat (charity) and distribute food and sweets during this month. There was no
music being played at any shop or public place particularly in the rst ten days
of Muharram during my eldwork. People prefer not to perform marriages or
other festivals of happiness during this month. The second Islamic month, Safar,
is also considered as a month of suffering. Some people paste a taviz (prayers
written on a piece of paper) at the lintels of their doors to remain safe from sufferings during this month.
The fourth Islamic month, Rabi-ul-Awwal, marks the great celebration of the birth
of the Islamic Prophet Muhammad, known as Milad-un-Nabi, on the twelfth.6 This day

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604

M. A. Z. Mughal

and month have religious signicance for Muslims all over the world, particularly
Sunnis (El Guindi 1995; Tapper and Tapper 1987). At the Adda Parmat market,
there were a couple of special stalls where badges and other colourful paper ags
were sold, with a dominant green colour. Some young men from Jhokwala and
other areas went to participate in public rallies in Lodhran with green ags. Maloods
or naats (devotional poems in praise of the Prophet) were recited in mosques and at
various ceremonies. During this month, some people arranged public gatherings of
friends, neighbours and relatives at their homes in which the devotional poems were
recited in Urdu, Saraiki and Punjabi. During the seventh Islamic month, Rajab,
another religious event of Meraj (Night Ascension of the Prophet) is observed on
the twenty-seventh. On this day, a special lesson or lecture about the event is also delivered after the Night Prayer. Mosques are decorated with lights on the fteenth of
Shaban, the eighth Islamic month, to celebrate Shab-e-Baraat. It is also believed that
angels present the deeds of people to Allah for the past year in this night and receive
new orders about their fate for the next year. Mosques are decorated with lights and
people visit at night and take pictures of them.
People are busy buying groceries and preparing for Ramazan in the later days of
Shaban. Whenever I visited the Adda Parmat market during these days, people were
buying our, oil, rice, sugar and other items of household consumption in bulk.
Ramazan, the ninth Islamic month, is very signicant from religious, social and
economic perspectives and, therefore, has been an important domain to study religion
and economics in Muslim communities (Armbrust 2002; Schielke 2009). People
observe rozay (s. roza; fasting) during the whole month and a signicant change in
their daily routine can be observed. During my eldwork, in the evening of the eleventh
of August, which was the twenty-ninth of Shaban, radio and television announced that
the moon for Ramazan had been sighted, which meant 12 August was the rst day of
Ramazan. It was announced over loudspeakers of the mosque as well. People had
waited for this announcement, as men had to offer tarawih prayer in congregation
in the mosque after the Night Prayer. Tarawih prayers, which are longer than the
usual ones, are offered during the whole month of Ramazan after the Night Prayer.
During tarawih, a chapter of Quran is recited every night in sequence so that the
recitation of the entire Quran is completed at the end of Ramazan. This is called
khatam shareef (the sacred end) and is preferably done by the twenty-seventh of
Ramazan.
During the whole month, women get up much earlier than usual to prepare the sehri
or suhoor (the morning meal before the start of fasting). Announcements over loudspeakers of the mosque are made at regular intervals to wake people up for sehri and
to tell them how much time is left before one should stop eating sehri. People can
eat until the azan (call for prayer) is calling the Morning Prayer. During the roza, it
is forbidden to eat any food or drink water or any other liquid. The roza is broken, preferably with dates, at the time of sunset with the azan calling the Maghrib (Evening)
Prayer. This time and the meal are referred to as aftari. The timing in roza is very
important as to when one has to stop eating or drinking at sehri and when to break
roza at aftari. Nowadays, a timetable is devised by various religious authorities and is

History and Anthropology

605

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available in mosques. This gives the calculation of sehri and aftari timings in hours and
minutes to assist people in managing their schedules accordingly. When I visited a big
mosque in a nearby village, Kalluwala, my friends particularly asked me to see a large
calendar. This calendar had the dates of all prayers, sehri and aftari timings along with
the possible dates of the Islamic months corresponding to the Gregorian calendar. The
radio and television broadcast special transmissions at sehri and aftari. They also describe
the timings of sehri and aftari for different cities. They present religious programmes like
naats and religious talk shows, especially regarding the issues related to fasting. There
were, however, different ways of communicating timings to keep people cautious
about sehri, before the widespread use of loudspeaker, clocks and media some thirty
or forty years ago:
there were mirasis or other people who used to play dhol (traditional drum) in the
streets to wake people up for sehri. This was a voluntary service and some people gave
them gifts and rewards. (Usman, 55)

During the daytime in Ramazan, people do not appreciate someone eating or drinking
publicly. Children are nonetheless an exception to this norm. Everyone respects this
norm because Ramazan is a highly venerated month. It is not only taken as a month
of fasting in terms of food but also of not doing anything that is generally immoral
or against Islamic teachings. If people see someone deviating from these norms, they
usually say sharam kar (shame). Marriages are not performed in the fasting month
of Ramazan as it is only a month of worship. Music and dance, which are common
at marriage ceremonies, are not considered appropriate during this month. The last
ten days of Ramazan are the most venerated days. They are important for many
reasons. Quran started to be revealed on the night of the twenty-seventh day of
Ramazan, called Shab-e-Qadar or Lailat-al-Qadar (the Night of Value). The occurrence
of this sacred night is not xed to any date and is not given in Islamic sources too. It can
occur at any of the nights in the last ten days with odd dates such as twenty-rst and
twenty-third. However, generally the twenty-seventh is considered as Shab-e-Qadar. It
is a sunnat (way of the Prophet) to stay in the mosque during the last three, seven or ten
days, called etkaaf:
It is an isolation from the world. Only worship. Offering complementary prayers, reciting
Quran and doing zikr (a devotional act of repeating Allahs names). Etkaaf ends with the
end of Ramazan. At the moon of Shiwaal. When the moon [sighting] is announced, relatives and friends go to congratulate the person sitting for etkaaf with sweets and sehras.
(Sajjad, 23)

Women practice etkaaf by conning themselves in a corner of their homes and not
involving themselves in household activities. The sighting of the new moon of
Shiwaal is also very important. It marks the end of Ramazan, meaning that people
will not offer tarawih, there is no preparation of sehri, and etkaaf is nished. Similarly,
they have to prepare for Eid, for example, laying out their new clothes and shoes,
and doing other shopping. The rst day of Shiwaal is Eid-ul-Fitr. The Eid prayer
is offered in a big ground called Eidgah, in which people from the nearby villages
also join.

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After about half and a month, Muslims perform hajj pilgrimage in Mecca, Saudi
Arabia, from the eighth to the twelfth Zilhajj. Millions of Muslims from across the
world travel to Mecca to perform the pilgrimage. It is an obligation for every adult
Muslim to perform hajj once in a lifetime, if he or she has the ability with respect to
nances and health. Being one of the most important religious rituals, an expression
of unied Muslim identity and having economic signicance, hajj has a special cultural
value (Hammoudi 2006; Porter 2012). It is not possible for every person to perform the
pilgrimage even once in lifetime considering economic and or health constraints. In
Pakistan, when a person is going to perform hajj, relatives and friends visit him or
her before departing to Mecca and say mubarakbaad (congratulations) for being
lucky enough to go to perform the pilgrimage. Ones ability to go for hajj is considered
a matter of qismat (luck and fate). It is believed that one can only have this opportunity
if the person has a true desire and Allah willing. People told me that many people have
money but they die before they could perform hajj because it was not in their qismat.
When someone returns after performing hajj in the village, friends and relatives gather
at his or her home to celebrate the event. They offer sweets and owery garlands to the
person. Another important and interesting aspect of performing hajj is that people start
calling the person haji (the man who has performed hajj, for the woman the term
hajani is used). Haji becomes a prex title with the mans name, for example Haji Siddique and Rao Haji Lal Din.
Eid-ul-Azha or Qurbaani vaali Eid (Eid of sacrice) is celebrated on the tenth of
Zilhajj. People slaughter a goat, a sheep, or a cow, whatever they can afford, if any,
as a sacrice to commemorate the event of Prophet Abrahams offering to sacrice
of his son according to the will of Allah. The animal for sacrice is bought a few
weeks or days earlier than the Eid. Children play with their animals during these
days. The animal can be sacriced any time after Eid prayer until the third day of
Eid, albeit people prefer to do the sacrice on the rst day. Every family slaughters
their animal in their own house. A butcher, or any man in the house who knows
the halal (accorded by Islamic teachings) method, slaughters the animal. Women do
not take part in the slaughtering process but are responsible for dividing this meat
for distributing it to relatives, neighbours and poor people. Men and children then
take the meat in bags and distribute it. Children particularly enjoy Eid as they get an
opportunity to have fun:
we wear new clothes, new shoes then we go for [Eid] prayer, then we go to the fair,
then we play. (Waqas, 14)

Like during Eid-ul-Fitr, people visit their relatives and host them for meals at their
homes. On both Eids, some young men from the village visit Lodhran city to visit
the special fairs and enjoy special parties with friends.
4. The Gregorian Calendar
There is enough evidence to suggest that Indians knew the Western solar calendars
as early as the fourth century (Freed and Freed 1964, 7273). These calendars were

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History and Anthropology

607

not popular then because the local calendars fullled all economic and religious
needs. The East India Company introduced the Gregorian calendar into South
Asia in 1757, initially in Eastern India, and then ofcially adopted it in the same
year (Sutton 2010, 74). The Gregorian calendar was thus the ofcial calendar of
the British Raj after replacing the Islamic Hijri calendar, which was the ofcial
calendar during the Mughal era. However, Hindus, Muslims and other religious
communities always managed their religious festivals according to their own calendars. Muslim scholars continued using only the Hijri reference to dates in their
books.
Following Independence in 1947, the Government of Pakistan adopted this calendar
for civil purposes, as a colonial legacy. I visited the ofcial records of land, health, education, crimes and agriculture in local ofces, health centres, schools and police station.
These all mentioned only Gregorian dates. People in Jhokwala referred to the Gregorian calendar as angrezi maheenay (English months). The literature provided by the government to the staff in its agricultural department and farmers is based on this calendar.
In the agriculture ofce, whenever any farmer comes, the appointments are xed
according to the Gregorian calendar, as it is the calendar of the day. The contact
of farmers with the government ofces, cities and markets has increased the use of
this calendar in their lives. My appointments for meetings with people, including
farmers, were also scheduled according to the Gregorian calendar. This was not only
because I was comfortable with this calendar but also because people schedule their
meetings and all their activities according to this calendar. The major reason behind
this practice is that the date according to the Gregorian calendar is readily available
through mobile phones, television and newspapers, and one can inquire about the
date from anyone around and so be punctual. Everyone, including children, is aware
of the dates according to this calendar. In contrast to the other two calendars,
people always told me the exact date according to this calendar. Children, who were
not good at counting the desi or Islamic months, were uent in counting the exact
order of the angrezi maheenay. Although the Islamic calendar is part of the school curriculum and students can identify and tell the name of the current Islamic month, they
do not see much use for this calendar in their everyday life, except for some rituals. On
the other hand, the school registration, hospital, national identity card and all other
facilities ask for a persons date of birth according to the Gregorian calendar. Both
the modern educational and occupational systems also require the counting of Gregorian years (chronology) for planning purposes, for example when to promote an
employee to the next grade, the retirement age and the number of years a person
has served in the ofce.
The use of the Gregorian calendar is not limited to mundane activities. Only some
public holidays such as Eid, Milad-un-Nabi and Ashura are regulated according to the
Islamic calendar. It is because these are religious festivals. All other national holidays
such as Independence Day, Pakistan Day, Iqbal Day and Quaid-i-Azam Day are celebrated according to the Gregorian calendar on 14 August, 23 March, 9 November
and 25 December, respectively. Nearly all the schools in the area held special celebrations on these days. The radio and television celebrate these events with special

608

M. A. Z. Mughal

Table 3. National days and local festivals according to the Gregorian calendar.
Name of month
January
February
March
April
May
June
July
August

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September
October
November
December

Holidays and festivals

5th: Kashmir Solidarity Day
23rd: Pakistan Day
21st: Allama Iqbal Day
1st: Labour Day
16th June: Urs of Hazrat Pir
14th: Independence Day
11th: National Minorities Day
6th: Defence Day
9th: Quaid-i-Azam Day
9th: Allama Iqbal Day
25th: Quaid-i-Azam Day and Christmas

transmissions just as on Eid. Similarly, the examination timetable, award-giving ceremonies and holidays timetable in the schools are regulated through the Gregorian
calendar. Table 3 shows some major public holidays and festivals that are celebrated
according to the Gregorian calendar.
Rao Mehfooz and Rao Aulia told me that they considered only the Islamic and
angrezi months to x the dates for the marriages of their children. This is common
to all the people in the village. It indicates that the Gregorian calendar is now an integral part of the social organization. The economic signicance of shrine festivals,
especially in agrarian communities, is a common phenomenon almost everywhere
in Punjab (Lyon 2004, 209223). The urs (annual festival) at the shrine of Hazrat
Pir in Jhokwala is celebrated soon after the wheat harvest, in summer. The date of
the urs is xed according to the Gregorian calendar. In 2010, the urs was celebrated
on 16 June. According to Sajjad, it was observed in consideration that the corresponding Islamic month was suitable for festivals. For instance, the timing of this
ceremony could be shifted forward or backward if it coincided with Muharram or
Safar.
The increase in the use of the Gregorian calendar had several factors behind it;
among these are the gradual transition from an agricultural economy to a market
one, an increasing literacy rate and media. Therefore, it is a symbol associated with
modernity and urban life. The introduction of radio, television and mobile phones
has increased the use of this calendar in everyday life. The use of this calendar in Jhokwala increased so rapidly that after a generation it replaced the Bikrami calendar for
agricultural purposes. Thus, the Gregorian calendar provided an alternative to the
Bikrami calendar. It also translated the seasonal context with December and January
as being the coldest months, instead of the desi months of Poh and Mah, and June
as the hottest month, instead of Ahrr. On the contrary, the Gregorian calendar has
not replaced the Islamic calendar. This is because the solar Gregorian calendar has

History and Anthropology

609

not been practically viable to replace the lunar Islamic calendar due to ideological and
religious reasons.

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5. Conclusion
I have shown that calendars through which people measure and manage time are an
important part of the social organization in Jhokwala. Freed and Freed (1964) mentioned various calendars being practiced in rural areas of Northern India. They
suggested anthropologists to be cautious as to which calendar they referred to while
making an appointment with local people. This suggestion may not be valid in Pakistan, at least in many urbanizing villages of Punjab today, because Pakistanis use the
dates of the Gregorian calendar by default unless they refer specically to the Islamic
calendar. They do not count the exact dates of the desi maheenay. People used the
Bikrami calendar for centuries even after they adopted the Islamic calendar. There
were several reasons behind the continued use of the Bikrami calendar. Firstly, indigenous knowledge about seasons and agriculture was linked with this calendar. Secondly,
many Muslims worked as peasants on the lands of Hindus and their economy was
linked with the Bikrami calendar as Hindus celebrated their rituals and managed
their economy through this calendar. The increase in using the Gregorian calendar
had similar reasons. Firstly, after 1947, accurate knowledge about seasons and the
Bikrami calendar started to decrease after Hindus left the area. Elderly people who
used to own this indigenous knowledge continued using the calendar until the Gregorian calendar came into frequent use through the media and modern education. Secondly, farmers have to rely on the government to provide information about crop
diseases, pesticides and timings of cultivation and harvesting. Since the government
staff and dating in the agricultural literature use only the Gregorian calendar,
farmers have to follow this calendar in order to adjust to this system. Other factors
like modern education, the media and market economy also boosted the shift from
the Bikrami calendar to the Gregorian one. On the contrary, the Islamic calendar
has been consistently used over centuries, and both the elders and new generations
use this calendar for regulating religious activities. This calendar serves as a reference
point for religious events, which are an important part of the villages social
organization.
The cyclicity of time through years, months, weeks and days gives a rhythm to social
organization. This rhythm maintains social and economic relationships and human
relationship with nature through various temporal markers. The change and continuity
in the use of different calendars and other temporal models in Pakistan show the preference of people to choose between different cultural and economic alternatives they
encounter over the course of history. These alternatives can be the result of social
change over generations. The continuity in the use of the Islamic calendar is not incidental: it was the result of a continued practice for the sake of identity and religious
activities. Similarly, people used the Bikrami calendar for economic and social
reasons. When these economic and social circumstances changed, people gradually
adopted the Gregorian calendar as a response to socioeconomic change.

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Acknowledgements
This paper is based on my Ph.D. project at Durham University. I am grateful to my
supervisors Dr Stephen M. Lyon and Dr Iain R. Edgar for their guidance and
support in carrying out this project, without which it could not have been possible.
My arguments in this paper are also the result of my M.Sc. dissertation on time and
social change, supervised by Dr Mina Zulkar Ali at Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad. My special thanks go to the people of Jhokwala and District Agriculture Department, Lodhran, for providing me their full support during eldwork. Earlier versions of
this paper were presented at the annual Pakistan Workshop 2010, UK, Durham
Anthropology Conference 2011, UK, and Cultural Models of Nature and the Environment Workshop 2011, USA. I am thankful for the valuable comments from the participants at these events. I am also thankful to the anonymous reviewers for their
comments to improve this paper. This project was supported by Durham University
(Durham Doctoral Fellowship), the Royal Anthropological Institute (Sutasoma
Award) and the Charles Wallace Trust (Doctoral Bursary).

Notes
[1]
[2]

[3]
[4]

[5]
[6]

In some areas of Pakistan, particularly in rural Balochistan, some communities also follow variants of the Iranian calendar.
Abu Raihan Al-Beruni (9731048) visited India in the eleventh century and documented
Indian cultures, astronomy, beliefs, and practices by using participant observation and other
methods that are now being used by anthropologists. Although modern anthropology is considered as a product of colonialism, Ahmed (1984) claims for him the title of the rst anthropologist. Al-Beruni wrote many books and most of them have not been translated yet. One of
his books on India, popularly known as Kitab-al-Hind, is the only historical source of many
events in India, which was translated by Sachau ([1910] 2007).
In Sindh, a variant of this calendar is known as the Sindhi calendar or sometimes the Sindhi
Samvat. Hindus call this calendar as the Vikram Samvat in Hindi.
There is a slight difference in the pronunciation of the names of the Islamic months in Arabic
and in Pakistani languages. I have used the spellings that best convey the local expressions. For
example, The Arabic name of the month, Ramadan, is pronounced as Ramazan in Urdu as well
all in other Pakistani languages.
AH abbreviates for After Hijrat (Hijri).
The festival is also called mawlid, mulud, or some local variations of the same word in different
countries. In some countries, it is celebrated on the tenth Rabi-ul-Awwal.

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